This will be interesting to no one.
About a year and a half ago, I was listening to some music while I was running at the Maryland Farms YMCA when Maroon 5's "Sunday Morning" came up on my mp3 player. I really like that song, so I perked up a bit. Suddenly, I realized that my steps were falling exactly to the rhythm of the song!
There have been a few moments of such epiphany in my life: a) my first kiss; b) the day I realized Excel could open web pages; c) the first time I tried hosting a website from my house and it worked; d) the day I downloaded autohotkey; e) the "Sunday Morning" moment. I remember each of these moments extremely vividly. Life changing. Seriously. Hey, stop laughing.
I'm focusing on "e" for right now, though each item on that list could be fodder for a long blog post.
When I got home from the Y, I listened to all of my favorite songs and tapped out the tempo for each of them. Sunday Morning turned out to be a 177, so that was my starting point. I sorted my work by bpm (thank you iTunes) and gathered the ones together that fell in the 160-210 range and grouped them by tens.
I immediately found that I could run about 75% farther than I was running - simply because I was running to the beat.
I've found that anything other than a 4/4 time signature doesn't really work for me, so after pruning 3/4 songs (etc) and ones that don't keep a steady tempo (live songs are bad about this), I settled into a nice playlist. Now each time I get a new album, I run it through my tempo filter to see if there are any additions. So after all this, here is my LONG list of workout songs. (Please don't read the whole list - I'm just putting it up here so I can look back at it later)
Here are the "highly recommended for running" ones
174 - Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega
177 - Rock Me Amedeus by Falco
177 - Sunday Morning by Maroon 5
183 - That Swing Song by Two Or More
185 - Zoot Suit Riot by Cherry Poppin' Daddies
185 - Aserejé by Las Ketchup
187 - Albuquerque by Weird Al Yankovic
188 - All That She Wants by Ace of Base
189 - The Remedy by Jason Mraz
The first half of the list
171 - Me and Becky by Chris Rice
172 - Waterfalls by TLC*
172 - Leave Me Alone (a cappella) by John McLemore
172 - Shiver by Maroon 5
173 - Death By Beauty by Sylvie Lewis
174 - Live High by Jason Mraz
174 - Voice of Truth by Won By One**
174 - Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega***
174 - God Is My Redeemer by Glad
175 - Good News by Chris Rice**
175 - I've Got News by Andrew Peterson
176 - Springs of Life by Ginny Owens
177 - Ramona by Randall Goodgame****
177 - Rock Me Amedeus by Falco***
177 - Sunday Morning by Maroon 5***
177 - He Restores My Soul by Kepano Green
178 - Secret by Maroon 5
178 - Pillar of Fire by Andrew Peterson
179 - You Found Me by FFH
179 - Hosea by Andrew Peterson
179 - The Difference by Rescue
180 - Shiloh by Andrew Peterson
--- - Love Handles by Sean Altman
181 - Sing To The Glory by Acappella
181 - Daisy Simone by Sean Altman
181 - Keeping the Faith by Billy Joel**
182 - Everything's OK by Chris Rice
183 - Rodeo Clowns by Jack Johnson
183 - Gloria by Glad
183 - Consume Me by DC Talk
183 - Free by Ginny Owens
183 - Love Enough by Andrew Peterson
183 - That Swing Song by Two Or More***
184 - Rocket by Andrew Peterson
185 - So Excited by Rescue
185 - Forgiven Not Forgotten by The Corrs**
185 - Next To You by Randall Goodgame
185 - Mrs. Robinson by Simon and Garfunkle
185 - Zoot Suit Riot by Cherry Poppin' Daddies***
185 - Aserejé by Las Ketchup***
185 - Africa by Toto
185 - Only Truth by Acappella
186 - Do Right by Take 6**
187 - Albuquerque by Weird Al Yankovic***
188 - All That She Wants by Ace of Base***
188 - The Rumor Weed Song by The W's
188 - Testify To Love by Avalon**
188 - Good to Be Free by FFH
189 - The Remedy by Jason Mraz***
Okay, this is getting ridiculous, so I'm going to stop. I'm still not sure why I'm blogging this, but oh well.
*Where I usually start these days
**Sometimes gets skipped
***Highly Recommend for running
****Where I used to start - I need to speed back up
